


Bittersweet and Strange

by Faye_Claudia



Category: Voltron: Legendary Defender
Genre: Alternate Universe - Fantasy, Alternate Universe - Gender Changes, Alternate Universe - Magic, Beauty and the beast retelling, Curses, F/F, F/M, Fem!Lance, Female Pronouns for Pidge | Katie Holt, Homophobia, Internalised Homophobia, Keith is Belle, Lance and Pidge are both Beast, Lance is a girl there’s a point to this I promise, M/M, Polyamory, Queer Themes, shiro is a good big brother
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-04-20
Updated: 2021-01-26
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:09:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 12,998
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23753632
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Faye_Claudia/pseuds/Faye_Claudia
Summary: “I picked a camellia out of the garden of an abandoned estate.” Shiro argued, sounding like this had been something reiterated back and forth between them for longer than it should have been.“Ah, yes. A flower. Then it wasn’t from me that you stole something, but from my beloved. The gardens and the day are her domain.” A distinctly feminine voice echoed throughout the empty darkness. “That’s much worse. I should kill you where you stand.” There was still a single candle burning in the stand that Keith had dropped, and in the pale light he finally caught a glimpse of his brother's captor. She would have once been considered beautiful, that much was obvious. But now, she was beastly.
Relationships: Curtis/Shiro (Voltron), Keith/Lance (Voltron), Keith/Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt, Keith/Pidge | Katie Holt, Lance/Pidge | Katie Holt
Comments: 12
Kudos: 30





	1. Forgive the Dreamer

**Author's Note:**

  * For [ThePanVamp](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ThePanVamp/gifts).

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Shiro had adjusted to the peaceful village life without issue. Engaged to be married, happy and at peace, Keith both resented and envied his older brother for his ability to live without war.  
> None of his old teammates had written him since the end of the war and Keith felt rejected and abandoned at his teammates lack of communication, and in Hunk’s case, jealous of his ability to move on, the same way Shiro had with Curtis. 
> 
> Allura he understood, she had a kingdom to run, but Pidge and Lance's unceremonious exit from his life, that probably stung the most.

Keith awoke with the sun. Shiro always slept late, but Keith found that years spent as a soldier had created habits he could not leave behind. Shiro did not share this with Keith, where Keith found himself restless and unable to move forward, unable to let go of the burdens he had carried throughout the war, Shiro had adjusted to the peaceful village life without issue. Engaged to be married, happy and at peace, Keith both resented and envied his older brother for his ability to live without war.  
The water he used to wash his face was cold, the bread he ate for breakfast stale, and the sun shone too brightly as it rose, building a sharp headache behind his eyes. Still, Keith pulled on his boots and left the house, basket for groceries in hand, ready to face Olkarion village life.

The first place Keith stopped was not a market stall selling groceries. It was the old library run by the village elder, Ryner, who, despite the town’s mocking gossip about spinsters, was one of the only people in this damn provincial town whom Keith liked. She was kind, compassionate, and had fought in the rebellion against King Alfor’s corrupt uncle. Ryner had been delighted to learn that Keith had worked closely with the Princess Allura, Alfor’s daughter, and the two often spoke about their old war days for hours on end. Mindful this time of Shiro’s wanting him home before noon though, Keith limited his interactions with the elder, borrowed two books from her library – a collection of Altean fairy tales and a history book detailing the first rebellion – and made his way through the market stalls, buying eggs and bread and feed for his chickens.

The chickens were an unexpected plus for him. In this tiny village where everyone knew everyone and there were hardly any interesting characters, and Keith’s daily routine consisted of grocery-shopping, training, reading, sleep repeat, he rather enjoyed looking after his chickens. He’d named his two favorites Pidge and Hunk, the rest he typically referred to as Lance, because Lance had been as annoying as the chickens when he’d served with her as a Paladin. Admittedly, this was a form of self-torture, at least, that was what Shiro said, anyway. None of his old teammates had written him since the end of the war, with the exception of two letters from Hunk, mostly detailing his adventures with his girlfriend Shay, a girl from the village Balmera that had been under siege during the war. Shay had proven herself a valuable ally and Hunk had reconnected with her as soon as the war was over. Keith felt rejected and abandoned at his teammates lack of communication, and in Hunk’s case, jealous of his ability to move on, the same way Shiro had with Curtis.

As Keith trudged uphill back towards his and Shiro’s cottage on the outskirts of the village, he was approached by Nyma, one of Keith’s least favourite inhabitants of Olkarion. Nyma and her brother, Rolo, had been labelled as ‘war heroes’ for their part in helping the village survive the war, which would be great, if their methods hadn’t left a bad taste in Keith’s mouth. Most towns, cities and villages had been living on rations, but for whatever reason, most Olkarions claimed that they hadn’t received their fair share; and so, Nyma and Rolo had taken it upon themselves to steal rations from a nearby Galra camp. When first told the story, Keith had posed the question of the Galra soldiers’’ fate? Enemy or not, they were just following the orders of a corrupt king.

Nyma had shrugged off the question and continued to compliment Keith’s posture as “a warrior’s stance’. She’d made no secret of her desire to have Keith as a husband since he’d moved to Olkarion.

“Keith! Fancy seeing you here,” She sing-songed.  
“Outside my house?” Keith quirked and eyebrow.  
“Yeah,” She grinned. “I’ve been hoping to run into you,” She smiled prettily and leaned in, her long blond hair catching the sun. “You’re very elusive.”

“Maybe there’s a reason for that,” Keith grit out between clenched teeth, before side stepping her. “Have a good day, Nyma.”  
“Don’t be like that, we’d be good together Keith.”  
“You don’t want a broken man, Nyma.” He tried one last time.  
“But-“  
“Look, Nyma, I’m sorry, but I’m not interested, and I have to go feed my chickens.” He stormed off, the whole while hearing Lance’s would-be-lecture on turning pretty girls down in his mind. Lance would have loved to have Nyma flirt with her, she was just her type. 

She left, his mind reminded him. They all left. Gave you a pat on the back and a medal and went to live their happy endings. 

Kosmo came bounding down towards him as he came back inside the house, grumbling about over eager girls and boring villages and fussy chickens. Kosmo was likely one of the last shining lights in Keith’s life, so naturally, Keith accepted the full-bodied tackle and fell to the ground hugging his massive pet dog (it’s a dog, Shiro, you can’t tame a wolf, ergo, dog!). Shiro found him like that on the floor in the entrance hall, the basket he’d used that morning flung to the side, contents mostly intact, Kosmo still on top of him maybe an hour later. 

Shiro’s lip twitched. “Keith, Curtis is coming for dinner and I’d prefer it if you’d please not act as a welcome mat for my fiancé. “

Keith flinched at Shiro’s openness on the subject of having a same sex betrothed. He’d never been against it, had personally harbored an unrequited crush on his fellow paladin Pidge for a year before he even knew she was a woman disgusted as a boy; however, this town was traditional in every sense of the word, and while Queen Allura herself might have taken a female consort (Romelle was a wonderful woman, if a bit whiny for Keith’s tastes) the people still had trouble accepting immediate proof that some men loved men and some women loved women. Or like Keith; they liked both. “Shiro - “  
“No one can say anything when I’m in my own home Keith, you know that.” Shiro was quick to reassure his younger brother, before he picked up the basket of Keith’s acquired goods and set the two books down on the kitchen table. 

“You forgot to get tomatoes again.” 

“No I didn’t,” Keith finally shoved Kosmo off of him, the giant dog giving a disgruntled huff as he was forced to move off of his favourite human. “Mrs. Bess always tries to set me up with her daughter and her tomatoes are never ripe anyway. I bet we could grow our own with less hassle.” Shiro let out a long-suffering sigh. 

“Keith, maybe courting someone would be good for you. Nyma seems like she’d make a good choice.” 

“I’m not going to subject some poor girl - or boy- to my issues, Shiro. It’s all well and good for you and Curtis, he served with you towards the end of the war. But no one in this damn town is going to want to put up with a husband who screams in the middle of the night because he had a nightmare about Emperor Zarkon killing everyone he loves - again. Or someone who can’t so much as hunt without flinching at the sound of a gunshot. You know this.” 

Shiro sighed. He did, in fact, know that. This town was quaint, and friendly, and Shiro loved the peaceful village after the mess and stress of the war. But Keith had never been calm or peaceful, nor was this town very accepting of things they didn’t understand. “Patience - “ 

“Yields focus. I know, Shiro. But that means something entirely different now than it did during the war.” Keith now stood opposite Shiro, who was still calmly packing away groceries. 

Shiro looked as if he might argue, but there was a sudden knock on the door, and Keith moved to answer it before Shiro said something annoyingly uplifting and inspiring again. 

It was Curtis’ younger brother, Jace, who looked grim. “Is Takashi here?” 

“Shiro, it’s Jace,” Keith called, his brows furrowing. Shiro took one look at Jace and donned his coat. “What happened?” 

“Curtis...he was getting ready to leave, when bandits attacked, and he...he saved mother, but he was injured and he wants to see you. He keeps asking after you.” 

“I’ll be - Keith,” Shiro turned to look at his brother. Curtis’ family stayed the next town over, maybe an hour’s ride if the weather was forgiving. This time of year was prone to storms, however, the sky’s had been bright and clear all day. 

“Jace, why don’t you go ahead, tell them Shiro’s coming. He’ll pack his things and follow after you soon.” Jace nodded, and bid the brothers farewell, telling Shiro to hurry. 

“Keith, I can’t -“ 

“I will be fine on my own for the next week, or month or however long it takes for the love of your life to heal, understand? I’m a soldier Shiro, I’m not the angry child I was before.” Shiro nodded, made Keith promise to be careful, and then went to pack. Keith picked up his basket from earlier and set about preparing food for Shiro to take. 

His brother left in the late afternoon, reminding Keith again that “patience yields focus”, and to not forgot to feed the chickens and collect their eggs to sell.

“Take Kosmo,” Keith told Shiro. “If bandits are an issue you’ll want him with you.” With one last hug goodbye and a warning from Keith to his dog to take care of his brother, Shiro set out on foot to join his fiancé, Kosmo loping along next to him, tail wagging at the prospect of a new adventure. 

*****  
It rained that night; hard and heavy, with loud claps of thunder waking Keith up intermittently until he gave up on sleep and lit a candle to read his fairy tales by. His thoughts were of his brother, who was probably safely at Curtis’ family home, but still Keith worried, and feeling powerless, tried to distract himself with stories of ancient lands of alchemy and legendary romances. 

The next morning dawned bright and sunny, as if the heavy storm had never happened. Kieth stumbled through his morning routine and ate a breakfast that consisted of old bread and hard cheese (he’d given the new loaf he’d bought to Shiro in its entirety for Curtis’ family). Nyma came by that morning; while he was collecting the chicken’s eggs, this time with Rolo tagging along, but Keith quickly tried to dismiss the two, wishing them a good day, and headed back for his house, but Nyma stopped him with a tug at his wrist.  
“Keith, do you know what happens to a woman who doesn’t marry in this town?” Her bright blue eyes implored him. Keith did, in fact know what happened to women who didn’t marry, but he hardly thought Ryner‘s fate to be one of tragedy. The elder was happy with her books and her patrons, and hardly seemed lonely in the sense that the town tried to paint her. Keith said as much, and Nyma pouted. “But Keith, I can’t live the rest of my life amongst dusty old books!” 

“Nyma,” Keith tried one last trick. He took both her hands in his, “You are a brave, strong and courageous war hero. You deserve more than a broken man like me. You do not need me, nor any one, to determine your future, and you are capable of more than you know.” With that, he nodded to Rolo, who grinned at Keith like he’d finally done something right, wished Nyma well, and entered his house again. 

Only to find Kosmo scratching at his back door. “What is it boy?” Keith asked. “What happened?”  
Kosmo tugged at Keith’s pant leg, and took off in the direction Shiro had headed in the day before. Keith quickly pulled on his red coat, tugged on his fingerless gloves, checked that his dagger was secure against his hip, and hurried after his dog. 

Kosmo led him down into the woods that seperated the two villages, the trail still muddy from the night before. Keith’s mind flashed with images of bandits and wolves as they continued further into the trees, until the bright sky was no longer visible through the overhanging canopy. Eventually, Keith decided that Shiro must’ve gotten lost in the storm, because he most definitely wasn’t on the path to the other town anymore. Kosmo came to a stop in front of large iron gates, and let out a low growl before barking at them. “Is this where Shiro is, boy?” Keith asked his dog, who continued to bark at the gates. Keith pushed at them, and they swung open with little resistance, and Kosmo tore down the pathway towards the large, old, gothic manor that sat imposing and dark in front of Keith. The sun must’ve set while he couldn’t see it, because night had fallen, and the only light Keith could see were the brightly lit windows of the eastern side of the manor.

Kosmo barked again, this time at the heavy wooden front door, which opened without Keith so much as touching it. The manor was so dark inside that Keith could see nothing, so he lit the conveniently placed candles on the stand next to the entranceway. Bats fluttered around the high ceiling in protest to the light, leaving the impression of long time abandonment. “Hello? Shiro?” He called into the empty gloom, still following Kosmo as he was led up winding stairs into a...a tower. He hadn’t noticed a tower on the manor from the outside. Soon enough, he heard Shiro call back. “Keith? Keith, you have to get out of here!” Shiro warning him against something however, had never been cause to leave. In fact, it was usually cause to investigate, because Shiro was nobly self-sacrificial at the best of times, and stupidly reckless about his own life at the worst of times. 

He found Shiro locked up in some kind of prison cell/cage that was definitely not standard issue in any normal manor, but he decided that questions like that could be asked once Shiro was free. He set to work picking the lock. “Who put you here? What’re we up against?” Keith asked, fidgeting with the lock, easily slipping back into the role of Paladin. 

“She’s...she’s a monster, Keith. You don’t understand, this is -” Shiro’s hand came to rest on his own, hindering any progress he might be making with the lock. “She’s nothing like I’ve ever encountered. This is worse than the Galra, worse than Zarkon. Keith, get out of here, you need to g- “ 

“How sweet.” A distinctly feminine voice echoed throughout the empty darkness. “The red paladin, here to save his leader.” 

“Let my brother go!” Keith roared into the emptiness. Briefly his mind questioned how the monster knew he had been the red paladin, but he dismissed it as unimportant.

“Hm... no. He stole from me.” She sounded...teasing. Like this was a game to her. 

“I picked a camellia out of the garden of an abandoned estate.” Shiro argued, sounding like this had been something reiterated back and forth between them for longer than it should have been.  
“Ah, yes. A flower. Then it wasn’t from me that you stole something, but from my beloved. The gardens and the day are her domain.” The voice snarled. “That’s much worse. I should kill you where you stand.” 

“Beloved...” Keith muttered. This monster, she loved someone. “Wait, please, my brother’s beloved is injured. His fiancé was hurt fighting against bandits that invaded his home, and he needs Shiro’s help!” 

“He...he loves a man?” She asked, curious. Keith wasn’t sure why this point was what she chose to focus on, after having admitted that she herself loved a woman. “Yes, Curtis. They fought together in the war, they survived against all odds, and now they might lose each other. I’ll take Shiro’s place, but please, let him be with his beloved.” 

“You...you’d take his place to ensure his happiness?” She sounded shocked, unsure.  
“Yes. Shiro gave me everything, please, let him go to his fiancé.” 

“Fine,” the monster snarled. The lock was wrenched open, and Shiro was pulled out by a long, pale arm as Keith was pushed inside the cell. Shiro protested, begged for his brother’s freedom, but he was dragged down the stairs and thrown out the door so fast by the she-beast it was as if she’d flown. Kosmo had followed after them, barking and growling, and she’d flung the dog out the door too before slamming it shut so firmly that even Keith in the tower heard the resounding thud. When she returned (Keith knew this only because he heard her movements outside his cell, he could see nothing), she growled before speaking.  
“You were foolish to sacrifice yourself for him.”  
Keith distinctly heard one of the above bats squeak, before he shrugged.  
“Yeah well, maybe it was my turn to sacrifice something for him.”  
The door was thrust open. “Are you coming?” She asked. There was still a single candle burning in the stand that Keith had dropped, and in the pale light he finally caught a glimpse of his captor. She would have once been considered beautiful, that much was obvious. But her skin was too pale, her hair too dark, matted against her head and shoulders and shiny from grease. One got the impression that it was actually much lighter under all the filth. Her nose was flattened upwards, and her ears grew into large pointed cones on either side of her head, her red lips pulled back to reveal pointed fangs, and her eyes were black without iris or pupil. Beady and dark and empty. She resembled a woman turned vampire bat. 

“Well?” She snapped. “Or would you rather stay here?” She turned and stalked off, down the stairs, allowing Keith a view of the large leathery bat-like wings that grew from her shoulders and dragged behind her and she walked. 

He hurried to follow after her, his hand going to the hilt of his dagger. 

“I wouldn’t if I were you. I’m currently immortal and hurting me would only make your situation worse.” She spoke without turning around, and Keith, in the dim candle light, thought he saw her ears twitch backwards. 

Her choice of words; the use of the word “currently” was interesting. It implied that there were conditions to her immortality. That she could be killed, even if not at this precise moment. Before he could think too long on this, though she continued. “By this point though, I would probably welcome death. Even if you could kill me, it would by my family and my beloved who would reign vengeance down upon you a hundred times that of what I could ever do to you. Keep that in mind, and we should get along famously,” Now she did turn around, specifically to grin at him with her twisted fang-filled mouth and her beady eyes.  
Keith felt an odd and terror-filled sort of amusement at her obviously morbid sense of humour. She turned back towards the hallway, and led him into a slightly less unnaturally dark part of the manor. “You have free reign of the estate, with the exception of the west wing, and green house. The west wing because that is my lair, and the green house because that is primarily where my beloved resides and it’s not my place to give you permission to enter.”  
She swung open a door. “This will be your room. I’m nocturnal, and my beloved is active during the day, so your sleep schedule really doesn’t matter, paladin.” She turned to face him one more time. Keith could see his own reflection in her soulless eyes. “Welcome to your new home. Don’t try to escape, you will be killed.” And with that, she was gone. The darkness where she had stood seemed thicker and more concentrated. Slowly, Keith entered the room, which was dusty, but fairly bright given how unnaturally dark the rest of the manor was. A double bed sat in one corner, ornate and matching the rest of the furniture in the room, which included a wardrobe, a desk, a vanity and a bookshelf filled with volumes. The room had obviously belonged to a woman, for when Keith picked up a hairbrush on the vanity, it was inscribed with “for my daughter,” in elegant cursive. Upon closer examination, he found that the brush twisted to reveal a blade that slid from the base of the handle. What kind of lady was the daughter, when she lived here, Keith wondered. 

After inspecting his room, Keith turned to the window. Dark curtains were drawn shut against the rising sun, but Keith drew them open, and found that he could probably climb down the wall with the use of his own dagger and the hairbrush. Before he even managed to swing one leg over the sill though, a voice spoke from behind him. “I wouldn’t if I were you,”. Keith jumped. The voice was not the She-bat-beast’s voice, but still held the definitive tone of a woman’s voice, if not that of a slightly older woman.  
“Where are you?” 

“Right here, Keith,”. The voice sounded sad, and Keith followed the sound with his gaze, to a vampire bat that sat on the desk, her head tilted to the side as she watched him. “I’d really rather not see you die.” 

“Why should you care? You’re just one of her minions.” Keith accused. He decided questioning how she knew his name wasn’t worthwhile in an obviously enchanted manor. 

“Perhaps. But, like her, I was once more than I appear to be.” She hadn’t moved, but Keith slowly moved down from the windowsill to sit in the bed, facing her. 

“Who are you? Who is she? Who’s her beloved?” Keith asked. The bat closed her tiny eyes slowly, and tilted her head downwards, as if in sorrow. “I cannot tell you that, I am sorry. I hope that one day, you discover the truth for yourself.” She sounded sincere, and like the simple act of not telling Keith anything was painful to the point of tears. Could bats cry? “You may call me Krolia, though. And I know this is difficult, but I will be by your side should you need anything. I am your ally Keith, not your enemy.” 

Keith got the distinct impression that he was missing a large portion of the puzzle he’d been thrown into. Krolia’s words held such depth, such sorrow and regret and he couldn’t help feeling like he was the cause of it somehow. 

“Thank you, Krolia. Is there anything you are able to tell me?” He asked. 

Krolia considered this. “The Estate is divided by night and day. The Lady cannot leave the darkness and survive in the light, and her beloved cannot leave the light and survive in the darkness. Her beloved resides in the eastern side of the house, and she is as terrible and quick to anger as the Lady is.” 

“They are cursed.” Keith realized. Krolia said nothing. Perhaps some sort of geis stood over the residents of the estate, not allowing them to share certain information. 

“The Lady’s beloved, does she have a name?” Keith had his suspicions about the Lady now, though he would keep those to himself. 

“Once, I suppose, they both had names.” She answered enigmatically. Before Keith could ask anything else, the door swung open and two figures flew in. One was a bat as well, slightly larger than Krolia, and the other a falcon, much larger than the two bats.  
“Thace said that he was here, but I didn’t believe it.” The falcon spoke. He sounded like a young man. He landed on Keith’s shoulder without any hesitation, and pecked at Keith’s ear. “Hello,”. 

“Um...hi?” Keith spoke to the bird on his shoulder.  
“I’m Matt. You don’t remember me?” He asked, sounding deflated. Krolia made a soft cooing sound that no human could imitate. “No one does, child.” 

The falcon ruffled its feathers. “I’m no child. Now come,” he tugged at a lock of Keith’s too long hair. “She wants to see you.” 

“Who?” Keith asked, only to have the other bat flap it’s wings up into the air in a very human movement of frustration. “The Mistress. The Lady’s beloved! Obviously.” 

“Thace!” Krolia reprimanded. “He hasn’t slept all night, and I bet he hasn’t eaten either. Let him rest, and then let me feed him, and then I will allow him to meet the Lady’s beloved. Understood?” Keith was taken aback by Krolia’s commanding tone, but said nothing. He was tired. The least he could do was sleep and eat before he attempted his escape again. 

“Of course, Krolia. I forgot, I apologize.” Thace nodded. “I’ll go find Ulaz, we’ll see if we can find some food he might enjoy.” Thace hurried out of the room, even if he turned back with reluctance in his tiny bat face. 

“Thank you. And Matt, I suppose you should go inform the Lady’s beloved of everything. Let her know that she can meet our new guest this afternoon.” 

Matt looked decidedly put out, but after one more nip at Keith’s earlobe, he took off through the door, which swung shut behind him. Krolia turned back to Keith with a self-satisfied expression. Or what Keith thought was a self-satisfied expression. She was a bat, after all. 

“Now, you’ll get some sleep, and we’ll wake you when it’s time to eat.” She didn’t move, simply waited for Keith to obey her. Finding no reason to object - even though he wanted to - Keith drew back the covers of the bed and, after removing his shoes, gloves, coat and overshirt, he climbed under the covers. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, but not before he heard Krolia fly across the room and felt her press her little face to his forehead.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh look; another well-thought out Beauty and the Beast au about polyamory. 
> 
> I don’t think it’s clear in what I’ve written so far; but Pidge and Lance fell in love and moved to Lance’s childhood home (Lance was raised by the Blade in this one, idk) and were cursed by a homophobic witch to always be separate. The cure for the curse is for one of them to fall in love with a man and enter Keith; the loophole; because fuck monogamy and heteronormativity.
> 
> There’s also a complex memory charm in place; so Keith knows he had companions named Matt, Pidge and Lance but couldn’t for the life of him point them out in a lineup; and anyway, they’re magic and creepy looking now. (Pidge took on the form of an Eagle-slash-human so she is a very scary bird woman now.) 
> 
> Lance is also waaaay out of character here. My bad.
> 
> It'll get clearer as I go.


	2. Tainted Glory

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “I just...I know we’ll be fine. We always are. But,” Pidge lunged upwards onto her toes, pressing her lips firmly against Lance’s. Lance barely had a chance to respond before the kiss ended and Pidge was shoving her out of their tent

_A curse is a complex thing. It requires time and effort to cast, and most of all sacrifice. It is fueled by hatred and fear, and is hardly ever for the better. Some old fables tell stories of curses from which lessons were learnt, where heroes discovered the true meaning of kindness and compassion and selflessness. Learned how to love and how to become better people moving forward after the resolution of the curse. This is never the case. There are better and softer ways to teach people compassion and kindness, and neither of these traits were something the Lady and her beloved lacked. The Lady’s sole motivations during the war had been to help people in need. She had never revelled in the violence, she was, after all, a lover, not a fighter. Her beloved too, had sacrificed so much during the war for her family and for her people. They had lived their adventure, and in each other, they had found their happy ending. They had earned their peace._

Lance might have been an obnoxious flirt; she was after all, rather stunning. She knew it, and it wasn’t a crime to flaunt it. Despite what Keith said. He was just angry she was a better shot than him, that was all.

So Lance was a flirt. There were worse things to be. Like dead. In a war, there was actually an acutely high chance of her ending up without a heartbeat, which is why she refused to let Pidge do this. Because Pidge also had a heart and Lance was pretty invested in that heart’s continued beating. Besides, having Lance distract the guards while Pidge snuck around trying to free prisoners was an awful idea.

“I am not flirting with an entire squadron of prison wardens Pidge!”

“You’ve done it before,” the tiny woman was not impressed with Lance’s protests to her plan. She was the tactician, the brains of the operation. Lance was the sharpshooter. It wasn’t her job to think. It was her job to act.

“One time! And they were Altean. These guys are Galra. Our enemy! And, you’re emotionally compromised here, Pidgey,”.

“So what if I’m emotionally compromised! You’re telling me you wouldn’t do anything to help out your family? Because I know that’s a lie. You practically infiltrated a Galra base single-handedly because you thought Thace was being held there,” Pidge reminded Lance.

“I thought he was in trouble! It’s not my fault he never told me he was going under cover. Besides, I had Hunk as backup.”

“Well I have you as backup. Now go do what you do best and flirt like my brother’s life depends on it!”

“Okay, hear me out. I feel like flirting isn’t going to cut it this time, we need to think bigger.” Lance chewed her lip in mock thoughtfulness. Her eyes glinted with mischief though, and Pidge grinned.

“Prey tell what you have planned, then, oh wise tactician,” “Well, I was thinking more of a foux damsel in distress scenario might do it,” Lance widened her eyes and pressed her hands to her forehead and chest dramatically. “Oh please sir, I’m so lost and afraid and I need a big strong soldier to save me…” Lance trailed off to watch Pidge laugh openly and loudly at her theatrics. Laughter was so rare in war, especially from Pidge.

An hour later and a solid plan in place, Pidge grabbed her gear and helped Lance tease her hair and strap a hidden dagger to her thigh. “Well, I think we’re all set. Off to go save the rest of the Holt clan,” Lance smiled down at her closest ally, but Pidge was twisting her tunic between her deft fingers, deep in contemplation. “Lance, you’re...you’re great, you know?” “Well yeah, it’s kinda my whole thing Pidge, like how yours is being smart and Hunk’s is being friendly and Keith’s is being angsty...” Lance took the chance to actually look at her friend. “Hey, what’s up?” “I just...I know we’ll be fine. We always are. But,” Pidge lunged upwards onto her toes, pressing her lips firmly against Lance’s. Lance barely had a chance to respond before the kiss ended and Pidge was shoving her out of their tent and towards the camp. “Go! Be my distraction, Matt and Dad aren’t going to rescue themselves.”

“We are so talking about this later!”

_Unfortunately, the world doesn't work the way it does in stories._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Well look at that. @thepanvamp demanded and now it looks like this story is going to continue after all. How exciting.


	3. Rarely Pure and Never Simple

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> He considered what one would have to have done to deserve to be punished like this. 
> 
> Whatever it was, it wasn’t like he was free to judge. He’d done awful things in the war, made some terrible decisions, had had to make a call even when he’d known it was the wrong one. And sure, it had been a war, but the deaths – and the lives - still weighed heavily on his conscience. Maybe he deserved to be here as much as the Lady and her Mistress probably did.

Darkness, and the creatures that lived in it, were understandably terrifying. Keith had been certain that the Lady was the most horrific thing he’d ever seen, simply because she was beastly and batty and shadowed. 

The Lady’s beloved was much worse. The Mistress of the house was neither shrouded in darkness nor was she enigmatic in her beastliness. In the bright sunlight that shone only in the garden of the manor, the Mistress tended to her plants as she spoke with Keith. She was short, barely reaching Keith’s shoulder, but she hopped along on curved talons, feathers sprouted into wings from her arms and hunched shoulders and her mouth curled forwards away from her face into a sharp beak. Perhaps, what made her worse than her beloved were her eyes. Where the Lady’s eyes were beady and black, the Mistress’ eyes were too human. Intelligent and large and sad. Her head bobbed like a bird’s as she questioned Keith about his life, his thief of a brother, and his life in the village. 

Her garden was wild. Not neatly kept, and the Mistress seemed to encourage the overgrown state of it by tangling bushes, twisting vines and tugging out plants without rhyme or reason. When they re-entered the greenhouse, Keith’s eyes had started to water from the bright light of the sun. He wondered if the light was even the sun, it was too unnatural, casting very few shadows and making everything look flat, like a painting. 

“I don’t like that you’re here. But if my love decided that you’re to stay here, then I guess I’d better put you to work – Matt, drop that camellia, now. I will not hesitate to peck you – I know she doesn’t do anything resembling cleaning, so if you could start making sure my girlfriend isn’t living in filth that would be appreciated. Oh, and give her this for me.” She held out a folded piece of paper. “I don’t actually know if you could get it inside since I wrote it, but you’re exempt from the curse, so it can’t hurt to try.” 

“Uh, sure.” Keith took the paper. “Um…why-“

“Why what?” The bird-lady was grinding flowers and seeds into some kind of foul-smelling paste. “Why are you still here? I’d like it if you weren’t. Why do I love a hideous bat monster? I don’t actually know what she looks like now, but love sees beyond the physical. Why is my brother still messing with my Camellias? I don’t know but he’s gonna get wacked out of the sky if he doesn’t stop it now!” The Mistress threw her pestle at Matt-the-falcon who squawked as he dodged the item. 

“Uh, why can’t Matt carry this over for you?” 

“Can’t tell you, there’s one hell of a geis on us. You’re gonna have to figure stuff out for yourself. Why are you still here?” She cocked her head to the side unnaturally, and Keith swallowed. 

“Sorry, I’ll -yeah.” He turned and left without another backwards glance at the bird woman. The Lady had scared him, but he had been able to interact with her, even as she cackled evilly at his imprisonment. The Mistress though, she made him feel insignificant, like he was an annoying insect on one of her precious camellias. He looked at the piece of paper in his hand, it was creased, folded and unfolded over and over, and it had ink doodles of bats and birds playfully twirling around the letter L. Keith wanted to hate them. Wanted to hate their terrifying appearances and their creepy curse and their horrifying home. He considered what one would have to have done to deserve to be punished like this. 

Whatever it was, it wasn’t like he was free to judge. He’d done awful things in the war, made some terrible decisions, had had to make a call even when he’d known it was the wrong one. And sure, it had been a war, but the deaths – and the lives - still weighed heavily on his conscience. Maybe he deserved to be here as much as the Lady and her Mistress probably did. He stepped into the entrance hall, squinting from the stark transition from light to dark. “uh, Krolia?” he called, and heard the fluttering of wings as he made his way further into the darkness. His eyes would adjust eventually, but he stumbled blindly forward until he felt something land on his shoulder. “Keith, how was your meeting with the Mistress?” 

“She’s…kinda scary.” He admitted. “She gave me something, for the Lady.” He held up the paper, and Krolia let out a tiny squeak. “That’s wonderful! C’mon, we must give it to the Lady right away!” She fluttered, hitting Keith’s ear with her wing.

“But…it’s the middle of the day, isn’t she sleeping?” 

“Well, yes, but,” Krolia seemed to waiver, “she hasn’t been able to speak to her beloved in years.” 

“I’m not about to wake up the creepy bat lady, okay? The Mistress ordered me to clean this place, anyway, so I’ll do that until the Lady wakes up.” Keith hated cleaning. He didn’t mind washing up after himself, but cleaning up someone else’s mess that had been accumulating for years? He was not looking forward to this, at all. 

~*~

Had this been one of Altea’s old fairytales – (who was going to return his books to Reinar now?) there would have been only one cursed woman, and an obvious way to end the curse. But how did a curse get broken when the answer wasn’t true love? Keith scrubbed at the floor of the entrance hall, having decided that the best way to do this was to tackle one room at a time. The manor was enormous, and Keith had never resented a house for being big until now. Krolia and Thace watched over him, hanging upside down from the celling and occasionally reminding him of missed spots. It was the kind of tedious work that allowed his mind to wander; which in his own personal opinion, was the worst kind of work. He’d rather not think, because thinking led to worries about things like Shiro’s wellbeing and his own fate. He was a decorated war hero, a Paladin of Voltron – the elite of elite in the Altean kingdom. He had help bring an end to the Galran Emperor’s tyrannical rule. And here he was, scrubbing floors in a cursed manor where no one was ever going to find him. 

Would anyone even miss him? 

They hadn’t before. Pidge and Hunk and Lance – they’d all but disappeared from his life, even after their years spent forging trust and friendship in the war. The darker his thoughts got, the rougher Keith was with the scrubbing brush, until he successfully managed to snap the wooden thing in half. Keith stared at his raw hands, the broken brush. The wet floor. 

“I think maybe you should move onto dusting for now,” Thace suggested softly, but Keith let out an enraged shout and threw half of the brush at the bat – who managed to dodge it. “Well, I tried,” and then he was gone, deeper into the darkness of the house. 

“It’s mid-morning,” Keith grumbled. “Why does it have to be so dark!” He threw the other half of the brush n the direction Thace had flown. “I just want-“ He sank to his knees on the wet floor and trailed off. What did he want? To be back in the village? He’d hated it there. To be back in the war? Obviously not. But the comradery, the assurance of having someone on your side, that’s what he wanted. He wanted friends who didn’t abandon him. Maybe he even wanted a lover. And he definitely wanted something more exciting than cleaning to do. If he was going to live out a twisted fairy-tale, why couldn’t it be the adventuring knight? Why was he the damsel stuck cleaning a cursed manor? 

Krolia landed on his shoulder. “Let’s get you something to eat,” She said softly. And Keith followed her deeper into the dark. 

~*~

The Lady made her presence known much later that day, as Keith was polishing the railing of the grand staircase. “Well haven’t you been busy?” She purred as she made her way down towards where he stood. “Your girlfriend asked me to make sure you weren’t living in your own filth,” Keith answered nonplussed. The Lady scoffed. “She never did have any faith in me,” “She also gave me this,” Keith held up the paper, and the Lady lunged for it. However, no matter how she tried, she couldn’t touch it. “Read it to me!” She snarled. Her dark eyes showed longing that Keith had never before seen. He nodded and unfolded the paper. 

The Mistress’s handwriting was terrible.

“My dearest one, my – I can’t read what it says here, it’s all smudged.” 

“She probably wrote my name, it’s not important, keep going,” The Lady was so close Keith could feel her breath on his cheek. 

“I miss you. I miss you so much I couldn’t begin to describe, but fancy words of romance were always your forte anyway. I hope you’re well, and that your family is still looking after you, and that you’re looking after them. I follow your shadow in the windows at night, when my light is at it’s dimmest and you’re pacing your lair- yes, it’s a lair, beloved. You always were too dramatic for your own good.   
I miss you. I can’t imagine not missing you.   
And I love you. I love you more each day despite our separation. And I promised you that I would never stop, and I won’t. But I suspect, with your newest guest, that you’ve begun to formulate a plan and I don’t like it. But I agree with you, my love. It’s time. Our families cannot live like this forever, and we have to move on. 

So I give you my blessing.” 

The Lady screeched at this and made another unsuccessful lunge at the letter. “She can’t! She’s wrong! How can she be so smart and so stupid at the same time! How dare she! As if I would ever! Go tell her, go tell her now that she’s wrong, that she was always closer, knew better, and it’s not for me! Tell her now!” 

Keith stood with wide eyes, unsure of what was happening. The contents of the letter made little sense to him, although he did know it was about him in some form. And about breaking their curse. 

“Go!” The Lady roared, her fangs flashed and her wings flared outward and upward. Keith ran, still clutching the letter in one hand and the cloth he’d been using in the other. 

He rattled the greenhouse door until The Mistress let him in, and Keith, wild-eyed and frantic told her what the Lady had said. The Mistress didn’t share his urgency, and she examined Keith with a soft expression. Almost pity. 

“This isn’t fair to any of us,” She said sadly. “And yet something must be done. I still think she’s the better choice. But I’ll respect her wishes. Tell her…” She trailed off, her too human eyes meeting Keith’s. “Tell her time will tell. We won’t choose now.” Keith nodded and turned towards the door once again. Still unsure, still confused, his heart still frantic from his earlier fright. “I’m sorry. It’s not a pretty thing, you’ve gotten yourself messed up in.” 

Keith nodded again, and set out across the still too-bright garden back to the manor. 

The Lady took the news a lot calmer than Keith had anticipated. She’s simply said “Very well. We’ll start with dinner.” Which hadn’t made much sense to Keith, but he decided that after her earlier display, risking her anger might not be worth asking. So he sat down with her, while she ate her breakfast and he ate his dinner, and after the quietest meal of his life, he went to bed. All thoughts of escape forgotten as his mind played their words over and over again. What was so important about him? Why were they arguing over it? How could only on e of them break the curse if he was involved? A slow suspicion began to build, and with it, the beginnings of a headache. He didn’t like the taste it left in his mouth. 

He’d started the day wondering about what they had done to earn their curse, now, he thought uneasily about the kind of monster who would cast such a curse. 

~*~  
Weeks passed in which he spent time with both beastly women, and he managed to establish something resembling a routine as he grew to know more about the Lady and the Mistress. The Lady whined. A lot. Every slight was a personal affront to her and every forgotten dinner/breakfast was an unforgivable offence that would be forgiven in the next hour. Something in the back of Keith’s mind hurt whenever the lady called him “Mullet” and she hardly ever let him spend his evenings alone. The mistress was incredibly intelligent, so much so that she forgot sometimes how to function as a living being. She knew even without access to them which stars were where depending on the time of year, and she made an incredible amount of potions and ointments and any other means of alchemical products in her green house, but Keith often found her sleeping in a stiff wooden chair as opposed to in her makeshift nest of blankest and pillows and feathers(And the odd twig). She never hesitated to remind him that he wasn’t as smart as she was though, lest he forget his place as unwanted guest.

He spent his mornings helping the Mistress and his afternoons cleaning the manor, his evenings talking with The Lady and through it all Krolia usually sat perched on his shoulder or flew about him like she was worried about what trouble he might get into if left alone. At night Keith struggled with the answers he didn’t have but could sense were so, so close. He’d never felt more conflicted about anything in his life. Shouldn’t he be trying to escape? Shouldn’t he be looking for ways to break their curse? He didn’t feel comfortable here, and yet, strangely, he felt content with these strange people in a way he hadn’t felt since the war. 

Keith had managed to clean his way through the front facing rooms of the manor, and had started working his way back towards the westward side, when he came across the Lady’s lair. It was late afternoon and she should be standing in the eastern parlour staring out the blackened window trying to get a glimpse of her beloved at this point in the day, so Keith decided at the least he could probably do some light dusting or something. Truth was he was more curious than anything. The Mistress had no problem allowing her into her sanctuary, so why was the Lady so secretive?

The answer was apparently related in some way to the sheer amount of throwing knives embedded in the walls. And perhaps the glowing hourglass that sat on the only intact piece of furniture in the room. Above it a bat much larger than any of the others he’d met slept hanging from the ceiling. The hourglass glowed a soft blue, the sands inside it grey and sifting slowly upward instead of downward. Keith knew what magic looked like, and felt like, and The Mistress had plenty magic items in her green house, but this hour glass felt different. The magic around it tasted bitter. He might not have been an expert, but any paladin knew a cursed item when they saw one. He’d encountered several during the war. And several enchanted ones too, like the lion pins that had granted the five of them their enhanced status; although those had been left in the new Queen’s care. He knew better, he knew better than to touch a cursed object, than to reach out and brush his fingers against the glass, but his hand reached out anyway, of its own volition, and he stared transfixed at the sand. He could see images in there, of memories, his own? Of the Lady and The Mistress but they were different. His head ached as the answers he sought started to form into something solid in his mind. Memories. Something he’d forgotten – 

He was shoved to the floor as the Lady tackled him, snarling. “How dare you! I warned you! Get out!” Her voice echoed throughout the manor, her wings flared and she bared her fangs at Keith and he ran. He ran without looking back, he didn’t top to grab his clock as he pushed open the heavy door, while Thace and Ulaz fluttered around him demanding to know what had happened. 

“I cant do this, my head hurts all the time and I know I know the answers I just can’t reach them and no one will tell me and I can’t- I’m so - it’s too much and my heart cannot take this place!” Keith rushed out into the garden, ignoring Krolia shouting after him. He shoved Matt aside and ignored the Mistress’ calling him. He shoved open the heavy wrought-iron gate and – 

He was surrounded by snow. It had been summer when Shiro left. Had he been here so long? It hadn’t felt like months in the manor, but perhaps time worked differently there. He shivered in his breeches and cotton tunic. He was wearing house-slippers for heaven’s sake. He’d been domesticated by two women and he hadn’t even noticed and – he hadn’t minded. He breathed in deep, looked at the gate – behind which he saw only an empty derelict manor, and began walking. 

Night fell quickly, and Keith slowly lost feeling in his toes, his feet, his fingers, his hands, and his nose. It was so dark he couldn’t see further than three feet ahead of him, and he stumbled with every step. The village had to be close by though, he knew that much. It had to be. 

Keith had been away too long, he had forgotten that in winter, there were creatures that liked the cold and the dark. Altea and Galra were both kingdoms known for it’s magic, and like all things, magic has always had its darker sides. It was a galran dire wolf, the size of Shiro and twice as vicious, that found Keith’s scent and stalked him through the forest. As he reached the outskirts of the forest, the wolf began to fear it would loose it’s prey and began to prepare to pounce. And then several things happened at once: 

Keith collapsed from the cold, The wolf darted forward, Nyma, who had been meeting another girl from the village for a secret rendezvous stepped into the path to see Keith fall, and finally The Lady dove down from where she’d been flying overhead to stop the wolf from killing Keith, snapping its neck but not before the massive thing swiped at her side. Nyma screamed as The Lady picked Keith up, scowled at her and then flew off with Keith groaning in her grip. 

~*~  
Keith came too in front of a large fire, crackling in the fireplace of the lounge he had cleaned just that week. He was swaddled in blankets so tightly he couldn’t move, and The Lady’s terrifying eyes were peering down at him. As soon as he blinked awake, she started ranting and scolding. “-stupid, no cloak, no shoes, you absolute- why did you think that was a good idea – I am not that scary anyways – you absolute moron – why would you – are you okay?” Keith almost got whiplash from her sudden change in direction. “I’d have been better off if you had never-“ 

“Never what, Keith? Never found your brother stealing? Never let you trade your life for his? You chose to be here! Or did you want to go back further? Never been born? Never adopted by House Mamora? Never met and fallen in love with the love of my life? What do you want from me?” The Lady exploded, and Keith’s near constant headache returned. House Mamora, that was important. “I gave you one rule, you have free reign of anywhere except my room. That’s not unreasonable! Why did you even go inside? You’re lucky Kolivan didn’t wake up, he’d have torn out your eyes, idiot.” 

Keith law back down from his half seated position, eyes covered with his hand. “I’m sorry,” he said so quietly the Lady barely heard him. She draped herself over a chaise, “What was that?” 

“I said I’m sorry, okay! Maybe if you weren’t such a bitch I wouldn’t have run!” 

“Maybe if you weren’t a self-sacrificing asshole, you wouldn’t be here!” 

The two made eye contact, Keith on the floor, and the Lady on her chaise violet to black and the absurdity of their situation struck them, and they laughed. It was a hard laugh, the kind Keith hadn’t experienced in years, not since he’d been with – he winched as his head ached. 

The Lady lent forward to make sure he was okay. “I, I get these headaches, I think when I get too close to a memory or an answer. It’s like your curse doesn’t want me to know anything.” Keith’s eyes dropped to the Lady’s side. 

“You’re bleeding!”

“It’s not going to kill me,” she waved off. 

“Still,” Keith struggled in his blankets. That should be treated,” He turned to see Krolia and Thace hanging from the doorway. “Can you two get me a cloth, and warm water?” 

“I was a field medic, son. I can do better than that,” Ulaz grunted from above the fireplace, sending a shooting pain through Keith’s skull, and took off, the other two in tow. 

The Lady looked at Keith in consideration.   
“I don’t like this. I think my beloved was right,” She said ominously.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I typed this instead of working in about three hours and it's 100% unedited.   
> Enjoy


	4. Thief of Time

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A ball felt a little out of place to Pidge, but, she had to admit, it was probably the best way to celebrate the treaty finally being realised between Galra and Altea. Two kingdoms finally at peace, and one freed from a tyrannical ruler.

_This tale takes the tone of a fairy tale, with magic and creatures and as mentioned previously; curses. So if life doesn’t work the way stories do, and yet the heroes strive towards a happily ever after; a peaceful end for battle-hardened soldiers, maybe the happily ever after they thought they had earned hadn’t been the one fate intended for them. Maybe they were unknowingly incomplete in their ‘after’._

Pidge was leaning against one of the many stone columns that held up the ceiling of the ballroom. She wore the formal attire befitting of a paladin; having refused to wear an actual ballgown. Lance; bless her dramatic heart, had chosen to wear a gown that matched her eye colour and sparkled like the stars, paired with the cape of her uniform. If she’d have been able to get away with a tiara she probably would have worn one. A ball felt a little out of place to Pidge, but, she had to admit, it was probably the best way to celebrate the treaty finally being realized between Galra and Altea. Two kingdoms finally at peace, and one freed from a tyrannical ruler.

“You’ve forgotten how to party, haven’t you?” Shiro startled Pidge out of her careful observation of her girlfriend.

(She had a girlfriend!)

“Kind of, yeah. I spent so long…”

“Trying to find Matt, yeah?” Shiro smiled. If Pidge didn’t already have the best older brother in the known world, Shiro would definitely fit that role in her life. “Yeah. It almost feels wrong to have fun now.” She admitted. Shiro laughed, “You sound like Keith, he tried to convince me he needed to work security for tonight. I told him the Blade had it handled but…” Shiro trailed off, looking over to where his younger brother stood rigid and alert near the entrance.

“He’s going to have trouble once it sinks in, isn’t he?” Pidge smiled fondly at the serious man. Before Lance, there had been a time when she’d thought…

“Katie…” Speaking of her girlfriend, “Come dance with me, Coran keep’s introducing me to nobles he think’s I should marry.”

Katie shrugged at Shiro in apology as she was lead away by Lance.

“I thought you liked being flirted with,” Pidge smirked. Lance scowled, “not when they want me to be some kind of kept wife,”

“Aw, baby, you don’t wanna be my trophy wife?” Pidge grinned at Lance, her eyes twinkling.

“Bold of you to assume I’m the trophy wife, darling,” Lance leered down at pidge as they moved slowly to the music. “Please, I am obviously the breadwinner here,”

“I’m an assassin, love, you’re what, just smart?”

“I’m a paladin, you’re a lady, there’s a way of things, you know,” Pidge morphed her expression into one of snootiness and mimicked the posh accent of Coran and Allura. The expression didn’t hold for long though as the two giggled their way through the rest of the dance before Lance was dragged off to dance with Hunk. The two had always seemed to be closer than the other paladins. Best friends were like that, she supposed.

Allura demanded a dance from Pidge next, and after that she found herself engaged in a conversation with one of the nobles who had helped the war effort with his knowledge of alchemy – something Pidge considered a talent of hers, although speaking with Lord Grithe made her realise she still had a lot to learn. Lance came back to beg another dance off of her towards the end of the night, and from the way the two of them stumbled it was obvious the wine had been flowing freely.

“It’s over,” Lance breathed in her ear, “Can you believe it? Allura’s coronation is in a week, and Lotor’s king of Galra, there’s no more bad guys to fight, we can go home,” Lance suddenly seemed to realise something, and lead Pidge back off the dance floor. “I kinda buried the lead there, sorry,” She tugged at a very sparkly earring hanging from her lobe, “I spoke with Kolivan yesterday, and I know we were gonna keep this low-key, but uh – I was wondering if you – and Matt – but mostly you – would come back with me to the estate? Live with The Blade – with me?”

House Mamora – or The Blade of Mamora were a complicated noble family – most of them weren’t really related, and every single one of them were trained assassins. They were Galran, although their estate – so Pidge had been told, was so close to the southern Altean border that many argued over which court they truly belonged to. The answer had seemed to be more complicated than the question, for they were loyal to Galra but not to Zarkon, their tyrant king, and Lance specifically, was definitely northern Altean with her blue eyes and darker skin that matched the Princess’ (soon to be queen) own complexion.

“You want me there?” Pidge asked softly. She wasn’t stupid, she loved Lance, but she was no noble, not like Lady Lance of House Mamora. She was just the daughter of a high ranking military official, now herself a high-ranking military official. Their roles didn’t quite fit the… courtship and moving in together thing. Although…Lance didn’t really ever fit into societal norms; she wasn’t just a Lady, she was a soldier and a trained assassin too.

“Don’t get that stupid thinking face on, Katie, I love you, you probably love me, and we both know Matt goes where you go, so…” Lance’s eyes were wide and vulnerable, and her hair was coming loose from its elaborate updo in wisps around her face.

“Of course I love you, you goof,” Pidge leaned up and kissed her, for once not caring who saw them, “I’ll have to talk to Matt, but I’m sure he’ll say yes. I’m definitely saying yes!” Lance whooped and twirled the two of them on the spot in excitement and Pidge realised that she hadn’t thought about war and death and fighting since Lance had asked her to dance that first time.

_Their future was a bright shining light ahead of them, but fate – if you believe in such things – had other ideas. Or perhaps the world really is just a terrible place. Or maybe, their story wasn’t as complete as they’d thought. After all, as they kissed, and danced and rejoiced, Keith saw none of it, as he stood, quiet and alone, watching for imaginary threats in the shadows._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Two days in a row, madness I tell you!
> 
> Still not edited.
> 
> Thank you so much for your kudos and comments, I grin like an idiot every time.


	5. Surface and Symbol

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> A plan is made. Secrets are uncovered. The Lady wants to dance.

Shiro’s fiancé’s family owned an inn. It was a small, cosy inn that didn’t see much foot traffic aside from the occasional ambassador from either kingdom crossing the border, wary peddlers, and the odd lone ranger. This suited the Michael family just fine, as a small mining town, their income relied primarily on the miners who spent their evenings in the inn’s dining room, drinking watered-down ale and avoiding nagging spouses. Shiro had arrived, stricken and pale and worried about Keith, only to find that his fiancé, Curtis was suffering fever from his infected wounds. Shiro had spent months caring for his betrothed while in a constant state of worry for his younger brother, and he did not fare well during this time. “My love,” Shiro stopped his pacing to face Curtis, who was standing in the doorway to Shiro’s room, “you’ll worry yourself to death like this,”

“Curtis, you should be in bed!” Shiro moved forward, curling an arm around Curtis’ shoulders and steading his other hand against his chest, “I’m fine, Takashi, I feel better than I have in ages, I promise,” his odd blue eyes twinkled in amusement at Shiro’s concern. “We should be more focused on you, it’s been months, and you haven’t heard anything from Keith,”

Shiro pushed Curtis to sit down on the edge of his bed, and Curtis – though his wounds were mostly healed and his fever was long gone – allowed Shiro’s fussing.

“I…The beast never said she’d kill Keith, just that he had to remain in the estate in my place, but still…I can only imagine how terribly he’s been treated.” Shiro’s conflict was obvious to Curtis, who’d seen Shiro through the war, and through its resolution.

“We should form a team,” he suggested. “We could reach out to Hunk, I know he stayed in contact, assemble some people to help us rescue Keith,”

“Curtis…I can’t – you’re- “

“I am healing, Takashi, I’m practically battle-ready. We don’t know if we can say the same for Keith,”

“You’re right, but if I see any sign of you in pain, I will leave you here and make sure Jace knows to not let you out of bed, understood?”

Curtis rolled his eyes – Shiro felt his heart jump, he was so in love with this man – “Understood, you overbearing lug. Now let’s go rescue your brother,”

“Tomorrow, first thing, we’ll start recruiting,” Shiro conceded. “Now let’s get you back into bed-“ At Curtis’ suggestive expression he elaborated “to heal and rest, you pervert,” but he lessened the harshness of his words with a kiss.

Keith had been wrong. The Lady wasn’t terrifying, she was annoying and childish. Since his near-death experience, he’d found that she hardly ever left him alone, which meant she spent the day following him around as he cleaned his way through the many rooms, refusing to help, simply offering her half-baked advice about things she really knew very little about. It became rather obvious rather quickly that she hadn’t ever had to look after or clean up after herself in her life. Whoever she had been before she grew batty features, she had definitely been a spoilt brat.

“You know, I think you’d get twice as much done if you didn’t waste so much time talking to Thace,”

“Hey Mullet head, maybe you could tackle the ballroom when you’re done with this parlour? It’s been so long since I’ve danced…”

“You know, the dining room is starting to look all dusty again, maybe you should go back and clean that again? I mean, it’s not like I’m ever going to use this room,”

She had glanced disdainfully around at the (fourth?) lounge that Keith had come across, and fair, even real people didn’t need four lounges, but The Lady hadn’t stopped complaining about anything and everything since the incident. Keith halfway suspected that she wanted to keep an eye on him and stop him from either running or entering the west wing again.

Which…might have been fair. Keith had almost died. But that didn’t mean that the Lady wasn’t bloody annoying and he was always ready to leave his chores behind and hang out with the mistress instead. Although…

The mistress was worse, actually. She seemed to talk non-stop about the lady’s good qualities, made excuses for her bad ones, and kept Keith at a cold distance otherwise. It was…disconcerting from the casual friendliness and candour she had originally granted Keith.

“Why are they acting so different now?” Keith asked Krolia one day, on his way back inside after spending an uneventful morning discussing the Lady’s hair – apparently, it had once been very smooth and very silky. “If I didn’t know that they were in love I’d be sure that the Mistress was trying to wingman me,” Keith threw his hands up in frustration. Krolia just nodded sagely. “I think they’re both doing what they think is right.”

“Is this about breaking the curse? There’s something going on here that I’m not getting right?” Keith demanded. Krolia averted her gaze. “There’s nothing for you to get, Keith. It’s something they have to work out.”

“What did they do anyway?” Keith had stopped in the doorway, standing in the misty grey of not-night not day that divided the light from the dark in a thin line, “I mean, a curse this bad…”

“Nothing, Keith. They didn’t do anything. And I fear the worst of the curse has yet to come into play.” Krolia sounded so sad sometimes that Keith wanted to hug her, but every single bat in the manor had the same dangerous and lethal auras about them that, despite their furry faces, made Keith wary of petting them. He made to ask more because this had been maybe one of the most direct conversations about the curse that he had had yet, but the Mistress called to him from the garden.

“Keith, you left your sunhat,” She brandished the ridiculous floppy hat Keith had found in one of the bedrooms and taken to wearing in the garden to hide from the too-bright light of the sun. (Or not-the-sun. he still wasn’t really sure.)

“I’ll just leave it in your greenhouse if that’s alright? Saves me the trouble of having to fetch it every morning,” Despite his words, he still reached out to take the hat, and as the Mistress’ talons brushed his fingers, she spoke, “I’m not making room for your things in my space, you’ll just make my greenhouse messy.”

There was a startled shout from the foyer inside the manor, and the Lady, who must’ve been passing through the house, or perhaps coming to greet Keith, had her hand to her fanged mouth, her black eyes wide and filled with more human emotion than Keith had ever seen. “I heard her,” She spoke softly. “Keith? Your hat,” Keith, confusion evident on his features turned to look at the mistress, who had her feathered head cocked to the side in annoyance, unaware of how close her beloved really was, unable to see through the mist that hung in the doorway. “I- The Lady says she heard you,”

“What?” The hat fell to the floor as she gripped Keith’s hand in her talon, not hard enough to injure, but hard enough to bite. Keith looked between the two monstrous women, standing on either side of him, and glanced up at the wooden frame that held the doors. He then held out a hand to the Lady, who stepped forward slowly, almost afraid, and clasped her cold and calloused hand in his gently. Both Lady and Mistress gasped.

“Katie…I can see you,”

“Lance, my love,” Keith held the hands of the two lovers and watched in awe as, for the first time in years, they beheld their beloved.

Their eyes shone with unshed tears, and the air was pregnant with words they hadn’t been able to say as they stood in reverence of what Keith was enabling them to do. At seeing each other again. They simply took each other in, their new forms, distinguishing between the beastly and the familiar, the old and the new. No one dared speak, they didn’t dare move.

And then the mistress chocked out “Guess you’re not such a femme fatale anymore, huh?”

And the spell was broken.

“Excuse you! I am plenty fatal, and I’ll have you know that for a bat, I am very attractive.”

“Yeah, the beady eyes and snout really do it for me,”

“Like you’re one to talk, you look- you feathered freak,”

And then both women were sobbing and Keith was very confused.

Keith didn’t know how, but in the in-between of the day and night, the light and dark, he was the connecting factor to temporarily alleviating some of the effects of the curse.

The two spoke for hours. Each of them seated on the floor cross-legged, both gripping Keith’s hands like a lifeline, while he sat between them, half in and half out of the house.

Keith found that in the doorway, holding their hands, the memories and the names and the emotions they invoked brought him no headaches, no twisting of bitter magic playing with his mind. He allowed the two women to speak as if he wasn’t there, but he drank in every word, every argument, insult, every recollection of their time before the curse - their time as paladins.

Keith was holding hands with _Lance and Pidge._

Keith was _holding hands with_ Lance and Pidge.

When did Lance and Pidge become a thing?

He’d thought they had abandoned him, and in his own wallowing and self-pity had been completely oblivious to the horror they had faced. He’d been feeding chickens while Lance and Pidge were twisted into bat and bird mutations. He’d been complaining about flirty neighbours and nosey tomato grocers and Pidge and Lance had been in pain, had been isolated and –

“Keith, you okay?”

“I- I thought you had abandoned me,” He looked directly ahead of him, at the wooden doorframe, unwilling to make eye contact to admit to them his failure as their friend, “I thought you’d decided you were all better off without me and instead I abandoned you. I let you two down, you – I don’t know how I didn’t notice it was you before, curse or not. You’re both still as frustrating as you were back in the war, and –“ Lance had moved her hand to rest against Keith’s shoulder and Pidge was trying to move as far forward into a hug as she could get without being repelled back by the darkness. The doorway was narrow after all, and Keith was sitting rather awkwardly – straight-backed and cross-legged with each knee pointing into the day or the night respectively.

“Keith, you’re a dumbass,” Pidge had never been one to mince her words, and she would certainly not be starting now. “We didn’t even tell you we were together. We’re sorry you thought we’d abandoned you, really, that was never our intention. But you can’t blame yourself for this.”

Keith, who might have always been wicked sharp in battle and impressive in diplomacy, responded with all the petulance of a child as he said “I can, and I will.”

Pidge and Lance exchanged an exasperated look that they found they remembered exchanging a lot during the war; usually in regards to Keith’s personal saviour streak. 

In the days following The Discovery, a new routine was developed and Keith found himself at war with his mind. The curse was complex and deeply woven, and the tiny Gray Area they had found (literally) only allowed for so much leeway. If Keith thought of The Lady or The Mistress as Lance or Pidge outside of The Doorway, he usually found himself bedridden with nauseating migraines, for which Krolia was no help. In the true fashion of the motherly role she seemed to play in the estate, she simply berated Keith on why he knew better and how to avoid the same in the future, which was not at all what Keith (or anyone for that matter) wanted to hear when he was wallowing in self-pity and in want of sympathy.

Outside of his almost bi-weekly migraines (Keith had an active and powerful mind and a stubbornness to match it), Keith found that both The Lady and The Mistress seemed to alternate between hot and cold when interacting with him. They found quickly (after spending hours in the late afternoons sitting in the doorway) that the lifted effects were limited and that Lance and Pidge could not explain the exit clause, as it were. Whenever they tried, their words became mangled and they’d start throwing accusations at each other that Keith was still struggling to comprehend.

Lance wanted to dance. Specifically, she wanted to dance with Pidge, but she’d settle for Keith. He’d cleared out the ballroom and Lance had been reminded of all the times she’d been spun around by Kolivan or Thace when she was little. The Blade of Mamorra had hardly ever actually held galas or balls, but Lance had been put through vigorous dance lessons by Antok, and before that, before her world had been fire and bloodshed and war (secret assassinations, politically motivated sabotage) she’d been a little girl who liked puffy dresses and twirling in them. Kolivan, terrifying as he was to everyone else, had never hesitated to indulge her. When she was still tiny, he’d spun her about on his toes, and as Lance got older, she’d started insisting she dance on her own feet.

“I always enchanted the violins to play the music, do you remember that?” Kolivan asked softly from where he hung over the enchanted camellia. “They were always your favourite.” He was old now and by far the largest of the Mamorra bats. He hardly ever moved from his post.

“I do remember,” Lance sighed heavily. A sigh of nostalgia, of lost times, “It was the first thing I asked you to do when I brought my beloved back to the estate.” Her blackened lips twitched into the shadow of a smile. “She’s always been a clumsy dancer. More brains than grace,”

“And you have always had more grace than brains,” Kolivan teased his ward in good humour. “You should dance again, my child. You have a captive audience, and a partner,” the suggestion should have sent revulsion through Lance. Her, dance with stick-in-the-mud, uptight, can’t take a joke - Keith? But the idea had more appeal than she expected. She turned to Thace, who’d been hovering in the entranceway. Probably looking for Ulaz, she assumed. The two of them had always been inseparable, “can you and Ulaz get Keith ready for a dance tonight? Dress him up nicely, I don’t feel like dancing with a man in house slippers,” she stood up and examined her tattered dress, “and find Krolia, I’ll need her help to look absolutely fabulous tonight.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It's been months! I am so sorry. Here's a short chapter, more to follow. I won't wait so long again, I promise! 
> 
> As always, absolutely not edited.


	6. Intensify its Ecstasy

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> It was a very profound and important moment, Lance thought. The kind of moment she was totally capable of, even if Keith thought otherwise. Well, now the moment was ruined with the thought of that long-haired, too smug, emo - never mind. The moment had passed. But it had been absolutely profound.

_Happiness is a temporary emotion, fleeting and impossible to achieve as a permanent state. Philosophers will often argue that the best one can hope for is a state of content being. None of this, of course, occurred to Pidge and Lance when they, young and in love, made their first home together in the Mamora Manor._

In the quiet darkness of her home, Lance sat curled up on her favourite armchair, which was plush, deep purple and velvet soft. Kolivan had read her stories from this chair when she was a scared and lonely child, and now she sat, a paladin, an assassin, a grown woman, a war hero, a Lady, watching over the woman she loved more than she could begin to understand. Asleep, Pidge was a mess. She snored, her hair, short and fluffy as it was, flattened itself against her forehead and cheeks, and her mouth hung open. Lance’s fingers itched to draw her, to capture her beautiful girlfriend in this moment forever.

Unfortunately Lance had always been hopeless as an artist, much to Antok’s chagrin. Instead, Lance sat quietly and watched over Pidge, swearing to the name of Mamora and the war goddess of the Galra and the Moon god of the Alteans and any other deity that may be listening that her heart, her soul and her life belonged to her Katie. That she would never let anything befall her beloved, and that if anything did happen to her, there wouldn’t be a kingdom, a realm or a plane of existence where they could hide form Lance’s wrath.

It was a very profound and important moment, Lance thought. The kind of moment she was totally capable of, even if Keith thought otherwise. Well, now the moment was ruined with the thought of that long-haired, too smug, emo - never mind. The moment had passed. But it _had_ been absolutely profound.

Pidge grunted, snorted and rolled over, making grabby hands at the empty space where Lance should be. When her hands hit only empty air, she jolted awake and, upon finding Lance sitting in the armchair, made a questioning “huh?” sound, and Lance, unable to deny Pidge anything, especially not when she was bleary eyed and pouting, crawled back into bed beside her beloved.

Pidge, though, was a tiny and devious trickster, which she proved by immediately rolling Lance onto her back and nipping sharply at her neck.

Lance should have known better than to expect a Paladin to be anything less than completely aware after waking. Years of war had trained languid wake ups out of them.

“Why’d you leave me?” Pidge whined into her lover’s neck, her hands settling on Lance’s waist and shoulder respectively.

“I was – oh! I was being profound.” Lance insisted. “Contemplating – uh-“ She broke off when Pidge moved her kisses lower, towards her collarbone. Pidge, mouth occupied, hummed for Lance to continue. “-how lucky I am. How much I-I love you.”

Pidge paused in her ministrations, eyes soft. “I love you too, Lance.” There was a pounding in Pidge’s chest, and something humming in the back of her throat, or her lungs, or maybe her whole being.

She was safe, and in love and happy. They both were.

_This, their first night together in the manor, was a memory they would both cherish for a long time. Cling to with their very being through too-dark nights and the blindingly bright days. For in the nearby town, where Shiro’s soon to be fiancé resided, lived a witch. And as many of these stories go, she was not a good witch, although she didn’t believe herself to be evil. In fact, she was a rather self-righteous witch, jealous and cold and aloof. But that’s a story for next time._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> It has been so long. I am sorry. I have no excuses. But! Happy New Year!  
> Still not edited. Also the titles are all Oscar Wilde quotes.  
> Enjoy!
> 
> Come find me on tumblr: https://tinyfeministpixie.tumblr.com/


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